Atrial fibrillation is a commonly encountered pathology in medical practice, and its prevalence has shown a continuous rise over the past years. Atrial fibrillation has a significant impact on patients' quality of life, not only due to the standard anticoagulant treatment with vitamin K antagonists that require close monitoring and dose adjustment, but also due to the fragile equilibrium between hemorrhagic and thrombotic risks. The introduction of new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) in the treatment guidelines for atrial fibrillation has improved the quality of life, as NOACs do not require close monitoring or dose adjustments. However, even if the safety profile of the NOACs regarding the hemorrhagic risk is superior to vitamin K antagonists, the problem raised by an unexpected hemorrhage (e.g. severe hemorrhage after an accident) and the need for efficient hemostasis in a chronic anticoagulated patient has remained unsolved. To find a solution for this problem, reversal agents for NOACs have been developed and tested, and two of them, idarucizumab and andexanet-alpha, have already been approved by the FDA, thus making NOACs increasingly appealing as a choice of anticoagulation treatment. Keywords atrial fibrillation, new oral anticoagulants, idarucizumab, andexanet-alpha Highlights ✓ Long-term oral anticoagulant therapy includes vitamin K antagonists and new oral anticoagulants (NOACs). ✓ The introduction of NOACs in the treatment guidelines for atrial fibrillation has improved the quality of life of patients, as they do not require close monitoring or dose adjustments. ✓ NOACs are divided into two broad categories, depending on the mechanism of action: substances that directly inhibit the activity of thrombin (e.g. dabigatran) and substances that directly inhibit activated factor X (e.g. rivaroxaban, apixaban, edoxaban).